adam

Another overall great team effort. Swift and Johnson did not play, so it seemed the first offense lacked a receiving threat out of the backfield. Homer is terrible and the Velus experiment has to end. He is taking reps from others for no reason. Now, if they were looking to trade him, they are not doing him or the team any favors with his trade value. The defense hasn't allowed a TD in 8+ quarters of football. I don't care if it is the preseason, that is impressive. They continue to get sacks and INTs which is great to see regardless of the players on the field. It is a mentality thing. I am still concerned about the run and screen defense. I would say it was an off day for Caleb, but his stats are worse than he actually played. If Scott catches the deep ball instead of the penalty, Williams' stats basically flip on one pass. Also, Odunze gets his feet inbounds and Williams might have 2 passing TDs to go with the rushing TD. His improv stuff is off the charts. If he can play in system, he is easily a top 5 QB. Only 1 sack given up by the offense and that was on Caleb. So the O-Line is holding up, which is shocking.

So compilation videos will be a breeze. Before we had to wait for other to post in. Now they are basically on-demand. If someone wants to see something like that, all they have to do is ask.

With Preseason Game 3 being the last preseason game, this will more than likely be the last game we see Caleb and most of the starters in until Week 1 against TEN. Btw, the early line for Week 1, Bears are 4 point favorites as of today.

New stat site at NFL.com if you have NFL+ Premium. https://pro.nfl.com/ Besides every stat and next gen stat, it also has sortable videos, with filters. So you can say player: DJ Moore, Season: 2023, Regular Season, Route Type: In Route and it will bring up every play with both the normal video and all-22 of that play. The crazy part is, it's every route, even ones where he was not targeted. Insane.

Without Billings, that would probably be a huge liability against the run. With the Bears secondary, I actually worry more about run defense than the pass rush with the DLine.

It's possible, but I would assume CIN is closer to a SB run than the Bears, so wouldn't they need the elite Edge player instead of the draft capital?

There are very few places left on the internet that you can "Talk" "Bears" intelligently with sane people. Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Facebook, are all brutal and seem to get worse every day with some insufferable people. So I have no prob moderating here to keep this place alive.

I am looking at Sep 1st - 4th for the league draft. More than likely 7PM Central. If there are days that you absolutely cannot make it please let me know as soon as possible. I will do my best to accommodate everyone, but if not possible, I will try to impact the least amount of GMs. If I don't get any responses, I will schedule it and we can adjust as needed up until a week before the draft, which is when it has to be locked in. Also, for league dues, Leaguesafe is open: https://www.leaguesafe.com/join/4225329/2024-talkbears-keeper-league Right now only 2 GMs have paid, so 8 left.

I would rather have Wheeler to be honest. Compare Wheeler and Velus and tell me one thing Velus does better? The 3 guys that are most likely on the bubble are: Borom - $3.1M in cap savings if cut (83K in dead money) Homer - $1.8M in cap savings if cut (225K in dead money) Jones Jr - 900K in cap savings if cut (555K in dead money) That would free up $5.8M with only 860K in dead money and 3 roster spots for guys like Pryor, Wheeler, and a WR or TE. If they cut Davis, they would have an extra $1.397 against the cap compared to his current cap number. However, if they cut the other 3 with him, they would still have $4.4M extra in cap space and filling the spots with more than likely league minimum guys who would not effect the cap.

Wow, this might be the best Bears Podcast show out there. Cole Kmet and Adam Hoge, then they bring in DJ Moore. Awesome info.

JJ McCarthy needs knee surgery. Tough break for the kid. Darnold will start for MIN. I don't expect them to win more than 6 or 7 games this year. After McCarthy, the only other draft pick of significance was Dallas Turner. They didn't have any other pick in the first 3 rounds. Turner is replacing Hunter, and if McCarthy is out, they essentially went from Cousins to Darnold and Hunter to Turner and the rest of the team is basically the same as last year.

Waldron had 3x TEs in Seattle (Fant, Dissly, Parkinson). I wonder if they model the offensive roster off of what Waldron did in SEA, since it is his offense? This is the offensive roster breakdown for opening day 2023 for Seattle: 2x QB 4x RB 6x WR 3x TE 9x OL So they only went with 24 offensive players (instead of 25). RB would be interesting if they only kept 4 (Swift, Herbert, Johnson, and Homer?).

Fearless forecast: Booker will be better than Leonard Floyd was with the Bears.

It feels like the top 4 of every position group is locked. The questions are RB5, TE4, WR6, DL4/5, LB5, and S5.

Top PFF Grades for Buffalo game: Offense: 1. Kramer - 91.5 2. Wheeler - 90.7 3. Jenkins - 90.3 4. Moore - 81.3 5. Murray - 77.1 Defense: 1. Baskerville - 97.0 2. Ogbongbemiga - 89.1 3. Q. Johnson - 86.6 4. Kareem - 84.6 5. J. Johnson - 83.2

Fieldman might actually play his best ball in Pittsburgh but mainly due to his supporting cast. I don't know how much better that will be, but I do think he is going to be a result of his surroundings more than anything else.

You know what's crazy, Trubisky turns 30 next week.

So after the 2nd preseason game, it looks like the 53-man roster is going to come down to 5-6 battles at the bottom of the roster depending on how the team views certain positions and ST value. This is my thought so far on the locks: Offense QB (2) - Williams, Bagent RB (4) - Swift, Herbert, Johnson, Homer WR (5) - Moore, Allen, Odunze, Scott, Jones Jr. TE (3) - Kmet, Everett, Lewis OL (9) - Jones, Jenkins, Wright, Bates, Shelton, Davis, Pryor, Amegadjie, Carter Defense DL (7) - Sweat, Billings, Dexter, Walker, Pickens, Booker, Hardy LB (4) - Edmunds, Edwards, Sanborn, Sewell CB (6) - Johnson, Gordon, Stevenson, Smith, Blackwell, Stroman S (4) - Byard, Brisker, Owens, Hicks ST (3) - Santos, Taylor, Scales To me it looks like there are 6 remaining slots: 1x RB, 1x WR, 2x DL, 1x LB, 1x S Blasingame has the lead for the 5th RB spot, but Wheeler has an outside shot. Waldron did not have a FB in Seattle as far as I could tell. They used a TE as sort of a hybrid role. For WR, I think Johnson has the edge at WR6, which could make it interesting with how they handle Velus. If they have Velus in more of a RB/ST role, then they may go with 6 other guys at WR, meaning someone like Pettis or Carter would also make it. If the Bears decide to go with a 4th TE instead of a 5th RB because Kmet, Everett, and Lewis have limited ST value, then guys like Sweeney, Carlson, and Bates are in play to sneak in at the bottom of the roster. On the O-Line, Borom looks like the odd man out which would save the Bears on some cap space. For defense, the last two DLine spots are probably Robinson and Cowart. However, since Walker is sort of a hybrid DE/DT, they may get away with only going with 8, which would then open up a slot for that 4th TE or that extra WR. It looks like they have one spot left at LB, it will come down to Baskerville and Ogbongbemiga. Lastly, if they go with 5 safeties, then Colbert is probably the lead there. So the last 6 spots will be filled by 6 guys from this group: Blasingame, Wheeler, Johnson, Pettis, Carter, Sweeney, Carlson, Bates, Borom, Robinson, Cowart, Baskerville, Ogbongbemiga, and Colbert. Surprise cut/trade candidates: Herbert (47.5 PFF Grade), Borom (69.9 PFF), and Blasingame (66.4 PFF).

Nix and McCarthy did not start, so it's really hard to compare them with the others when they were facing backups. Each QB has their own path and growth pace. For Williams, it was just about getting out there, not making any rookie mistakes and improving on the things that he lacks experience in from college. From training camp until this game, that is now visible on tape, which is about all you can ask for at this point. I thought the O-Line played pretty solid and at least played better than I expected. Bears QBs were sacked once for 3 yards (Bagent) while Buffalo was sacked 8 times for 34. For RBs, it is hard to see what Herbert does that someone like Wheeler doesn't. I have a feeling that Herbert may be a sneaky trade or cut candidate. They tried Velus at RB, he fumbled once and fell down against air. He also muffed a kick on ST. I don't know how many chances a player needs just because of draft status, but it feels like we are nearing the end of the Velus experience. For WRs, I was hoping to see some more Collin Johnson, but I don't even know if he played. Maybe they are hiding him? Tyler Scott is becoming Velus 2.0. He had one play as far as I could tell and it was a fumble on a Jet Sweep that he luckily recovered, but I can't tell you the last time Scott did anything positive. Between him and Velus, they almost always have more negative plays than positive, so why even give them a carry or a target at this point? For TEs, I really like the battle for TE4, Bates, Sweeney, and Carlson all have been playing pretty solid and would've been the Bears TE2 a few years ago. It's nice that depth is now at TE4/5. The defense had 8 sacks! I don't care what string was out there, they were playing the equivalent across the lines. Booker continues to stand out on almost every defensive snap. Besides the sacks and pressures, it was crazy to see him in on a tackle 20 yards downfield across the field from his side. I am very impressed with him so far. Hardy got a few sacks, and even Pickens got in on the fun. I am still a little worried about Dexter. I don't know if he is the answer at 3T. Baskerville with the Pick-6 was nice. The Bears have a crazy LB Room. Byard is a huge upgrade over Jackson, at least the post-injury Jackson. Taylor is going to be an amazing punter. Almost like Williams, you can tell he is special. For the entire team, the HITS principle seems to be working as I saw a lot of hustle across the board.

I didn't know they put these together so quickly. So they basically compiled video from Thursday night into an episode release on Tuesday night, so less than 5 full days. That is impressive. Episode Takeaways - Williams would be one of the most unlikely busts ever if he busts Flus increased his stock, he looked much more in control of the entire operation I still cannot believe the Bears have Moore, Allen, and Odunze as their top 3 WRs Johnson sure feels like the bottom of the roster guy that they follow for the entire series that the Bears cut in the last episode. There is always one. I would like to see more of the defense, that is probably coming in episode 2 Hopefully they highlight some of the other young guys (Booker, Taylor, Stevenson, Wright). I can't believe I saw Nate Davis as he has barely practiced

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Depth Chart

https://twitter.com/Schrock_And_Awe/status/1820469838143500747

60 seems like the league wide average for a QB, so a game's worth for the entire preseason makes sense. If that is a little less like 45-55 or 48, that makes sense. 48 in the next game seems like a lot though.